Kavanaugh, before his meltdown: 'It's important to have the proper demeanor'

A Mother Jones article highlights the in-control 2015 version of Brett Kavanaugh speaking on the necessity of judges having the proper temperament for the job. This was in the before-times of not last week, when the man who worked for Ken Starr to peddle a conspiracy theory and who worked for George W. Bush to do, according to the keepers of his records, absolutely not a single damn thing during years of employment, was the very picture of nonpartisan restraint.

To be a good judge and a good umpire, it’s important to have the proper demeanor. Really important, I think. To walk in the others’ shoes, whether it be the other litigants, the litigants in the case, the other judges. To understand them. To keep our emotions in check. To be calm amidst the storm. On the bench, to put it in the vernacular, don’t be a jerk. I think that’s important. To be a good umpire and a good judge, don’t be a jerk. In your opinions, to demonstrate civility. I think that’s important as well. To show, to help display, that you are trying to make the decision impartially and dispassionately based on the law and not based on your emotions.

Mind you, it's important to note that Brett here was talking about the importance of keeping your emotions hidden when making life-or-death decisions about other people; he said nothing about maintaining proper discipline when Wealthy White Conservative Man's Job Interview Doesn't Go Well. And while it is understandable that anyone facing what they believed to be either an untrue or a true but Very Bad allegation against them would show anger, the prevailing new conservative opinion is that you should be allowed to lie to the Senate if you feel the questions are unfair or if answering would cause you "embarrassment." But Kavanaugh was not merely angry. He became belligerent—and dishonest.

Kavanaugh's demeanor was that of someone who had stumbled not into a job interview, but an intervention.

He blamed everyone but himself. If there were new allegations against him, it was not because someone or multiple someones who once knew him came forward but because of a wide-ranging plot by Clintonites to seek revenge against him. If his yearbook entry was full of crude references, it was a prank hatched mostly by students who were not him. He never, not once got drunk to excess, and anyone who said otherwise was a filthy liar. He likes beer, and what of it? He doesn't have a problem—do you have a problem, senator? Do you drink too much?